WJAAS (related) - ALLNIC's "Puritas" MC cartridge

"Omen nomen" - i.e. the name says it all, as Latin (well, yet cryptically) suggests... Puritas or the purest of pure.

ALLNIC's C.E.O. Kang Su Park painstackingly hand-build these beauties as a passion and a labour of love... like the previous Verito and Verito Z, the ALLNIC's MC cartridges represent a true well-kept secret in audio and analog art.

They truly are unassuming little wooden bodied extremely light cartridges where the coils and building are much more reminding a Neumann's cutting head in its no-compromise coils/magnets assembly than a more conventional hi-fi cartridge.

Impressive as always, and in Puritas as well, is looking at the cashmere-like size of high purity copper coil-wire: they're almost invisible!

The South Korean workshop added to the already winning Verito Z cart, a solid boron cantilever, a new coils core material and a solid ebony body... BUT it's the sound which impresses more: I mounted it on my Schick "Palladium" 12 inches arm and using my size reduced home system, using Zeiss-Ikon "luggage-like" 26 cm wide-band speakers and Marantz 7C preamp with (superb) M1 25W Class A monoblocks and Shindo 301... well: the King is Dead, folks... "Hooraay!" for the new-born King.

The Lumiere DST - unlistened in the last three months - still was and is my most beloved needle;-) - BUT ALLNIC's Puritas owns 99 percent of the Lumiere's magic with a much improved trackability and - hats off - a bloom, an easiness and a sense of rightness and (aesthetic) surprise in an extremely "crowded", yet supremely well-displayed soundstage which is hardly believable for any cartridge at any price and any design.

What more impressed me with Lumiere DST since I began using and appreciating it - i.e. its lysergic qualities in differentiating ambient noises and the uncanny ability to follow ALL, bar none, different layers in any music played.

I found this on Puritas, as well... used with the Peerless 4685... well, it's pure bliss, pals!

On the enthusiasm for the recent listening experience, I'll complete the hauling to my studio of the Garrard/Shindo 301 in its silver slate plinth on next weekend, maybe incl. the (pain in the ass) 260 kilos slate platform where the 301 sits (sic!), as I simply cannot stand the lesser EMT 930 and its TSD-15 quite raw, "medium" playing and analog retrival, anymore;-)

I'll bring it - the complete EMT 930st, I mean - i.e. seismic base and glass platter - back home, good for occasional listenings or background music, swapping the celestial 301 with Schick's masterpiece arm and the new Puritas to sound in full Gotorama glory, at last.

All considered, I'm always very surprised when the old Zeiss-Ikon's speakers, despite their limited bandwidth and objective flaws, show to me something new, like a light at the end of a tunnel... the Puritas truly is a musical instrument and it clearly showed its beauty as a brand new little gizmo, pretty out of the ALLNIC's usual, seldom seen (weird) wooden box;-)

Will see (and hear) for further maturing and improving in the next weeks... as at 1,95 grams, also using a (someway) wrong arm (Thomas Schick's 12 incher is more "a suo agio" with less compliant cartridges) is... "T.V.B.C.I.E.O.P." (®;-))) - i.e The Very Best Cartridge I Ever Owned, Period!

I've no more wishes, oh Lord... ('til the next stroke...)

Thanks a lot to my friend David and to K.S. Park.